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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27501847">Peter Parker Went Silent</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittybellestark/pseuds/kittybellestark'>kittybellestark</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Depressed Peter Parker, Hurt Peter Parker, M/M, Mute Peter Parker, Other, Past Rape/Non-con, Peter Parker Needs a Break, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Precious Peter Parker, Silent Peter Parker, Skip Westcott Being a Jerk, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony is worried about Peter, Traumatized Peter Parker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-08 02:54:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,918</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27501847</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittybellestark/pseuds/kittybellestark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been a long time since Peter last spoke. It was a gradual thing, his descent into silence, slow and steady and Tony doesn’t notice it until he really notices. Then it’s a matter of piecing together what made his kid fall apart in the first place.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harley Keener &amp; Peter Parker, Harley Keener/Peter Parker, May Parker (Spider-Man) &amp; Peter Parker, Peter Parker &amp; Tony Stark, Peter Parker/Skip Westcott</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>392</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Peter Parker Went Silent</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>All My work is being posted here from my Tumblr @kittybellestark</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was a gradual thing. Everyday he just became more silent, he started speaking less and less as time went on. It was just slow enough that no one noticed as it was happening. It just seemed normal as it was happening that no one saw he was silent until weeks later. </p><p>It was a lab day when it finally clicked with Tony that Peter hasn’t spoken, in a really long time. Music was blasting at a comfortable volume, and Tony could hear Peter’s leg bouncing, knee hitting the workbench then heel bouncing off the ground. </p><p>“How was school Pete?” Tony asked, eyeing the kid carefully.</p><p>Peter shrugged, hardly looking up from what he was doing, not making any eye contact.</p><p>“Anything special happen?”</p><p>Peter shakes his head.</p><p>“Anything special on Patrol?”</p><p>Peter shakes his head again. </p><p>“What about Ted and MJ?” Tony goaded, knowing that calling Ned the wrong name would lead to Peter correcting him. “Anything interesting happen to them?”</p><p>Peter just shrugs again, and Tony sighs. </p><p>“Are you okay, Peter?” Tony settles on.</p><p>Peter hesitates for a moment before nodding. Tony drops the conversation for now, deciding to find out what could be causing this another way. </p><p>~~~~</p><p>As Tony had gathered information from Peter’s friends and Aunt, it became even more glaringly obvious that something was very, very, wrong with Peter.  He wasn’t eating anywhere’s near as much as he used to, hasn’t said a word in weeks, won’t hang out with his friends anymore, almost never home, and when Peter was home he was sleeping. His patrols were shorter, and Spider-Man wasn’t talking either, instead Peter was relying on Karen to just understand which web combinations he’ll need at what time.</p><p>“Harley, any chance you know what’s happening with Peter?”</p><p>“He was acting strange before he broke up with me, but I figured it was because he wanted to break things off. Haven’t seen him since then why?”</p><p>“He doesn’t talk, or eat anymore. He just exists for a little while, disappears for a bit then sleeps. He’s not Peter anymore.”</p><p>Harley seemed surprised but what he was hearing. While he felt he had known Peter pretty well, considering they had dated, everything just seemed out of character for him. </p><p>“Okay, thanks Harley, if you do see him and notice anything strange, could you just let me know?”</p><p>With that Tony left Harley to cultivate a new plan. </p><p>~~~~</p><p>Stupid Tony. Stupid, stupid, stupid. This is a bad plan. A really bad plan. He really should have given it more thought that he had. Following Peter after school when in disguise was a really bad idea. Can he be arrested for this? He’s just looking out for his kid, his kid who hasn’t been himself forever now. His kid who he neglected to realize something was wrong. </p><p>So here he is in a disguise and a really high quality mask over his face that makes it so no one realizes that he’s Tony Stark. Following his damn kid, because Peter has said nothing to him or anyone about what is going on in his life.</p><p>Tony watches as Peter leaves the school, hood up over his head, headphones on, and his head down. He walked slowly, like he didn’t want what was coming for him, but has resigned himself to whatever it is. </p><p>Another man, large, starting to bald with a bushy beard came out from around a corner matching his pace with Peter’s and walking besides him. Peter’s shoulders tensed up for a moment before dropping again, as he continued his journey.</p><p>Tony continued to follow as Peter and this other man seemed to be on the same path, almost walking in-step with each other. They has seemed to come to their destination, the man giving Peter a little bit of a nudge before opening a door to an apartment complex that looked half falling down, ready to have a sign with the word ‘CONDEMNED’ written on it. </p><p>Peter paused for a moment as the door was held open for him. Peter looked around the streets, maybe looking for something or maybe someone before dropping his head, walking in as his one arm was grabbed.</p><p>Tony walked up to the door trying it, but it was locked. Tapping on his glasses and activating FRIDAY. His anxiety spiking, not knowing what was happening behind closed doors. </p><p>“FRI, tell me where Peter is, now.” Tony grit out, pacing the front of the building.</p><p>“Peter Parker appears to be on the top floor towards the back of the building. There is a fire escape that should give you direct access to the room he’s in.”</p><p>Tony nodded, looking for an easy way to get to the back, finding the only way was through an alley half a block away. Tony started the trek, wishing that he could already be there, not feeling comfortable leaving Peter alone for this much longer than he wished to be.</p><p>“Boss, I’m sending out a medical team to you location, and advised Ms Romanoff and Mr Barnes to make their way over to your location as well.”</p><p>“What the fuck does that mean?”</p><p>“It means that I currently have visuals on Peter, and you need to prepare yourself. He’ll need a lot of support after today and you’ll need to be there, Boss.”</p><p>Tony bursts into a run at those words, feeling the uneasiness take over his being, as he turned the corner and into the alley, looking for the right fire escape before pulling down the ladder and climbing it at record speed. </p><p>“Tony, do you copy us?” Natasha voice came through FRIDAY.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, you guys got here fast.”</p><p>“Do you know what the situation is?” Barnes asked.</p><p>“No idea, but FRIDAY think its really bad, I just go to the window where Peter and the other guy is.”</p><p>Tony paused for a moment, before peeking up over the window sill and looking in. </p><p>Peter was face down on a counter, his head turned towards the window that Tony was looking in, his eyes were glassy and unseeing, tears streaming down his face. Peter wasn’t wearing any clothing, his body covered in bruises and welts. He was being jerked forwards and pulled back again a rhythm set by the man behind him abusing Peter.</p><p>Tony dropped back down as to not be seen from the next piece of Iron Man Roadkill.</p><p>“I’m going to kill him. Gonna make it a nice slow death, really gonna kill him.” Tony muttered, peeling the mask off his face, wanting the man who is hurting his kid to know who is killing him. </p><p>“I need someone here right now before I take his head off and throw it into the East River.” </p><p>Tony grabbed his watch pulling it into a gauntlet, before breaking in the window. It worried Tony how Peter continued to not react, where the other man knew he was caught, pulling away from Peter, and tucking himself back into his pants, and trying to make a run for it. Tony blasted him with his repulsor, forcing the man to the ground. </p><p>Natasha and Barnes kicked the door down, guns pointed at the man on the ground advising Tony to go to Peter. Tony nods, turning back to his broken kid, who stayed exactly in his position half on and half off the counter. Tony went around the counter to be in front of Peter’s face. </p><p>“Peter? Hey, hey, it’s me, it’s Tony, you like to call me Mr Stark for some forsaken reason. Things are going to be okay now, right? You can come back to us whenever you feel safe, okay?” Tony made sure to not touch Peter, not wanting to scare him any further.</p><p>Peter’s eyes still held no sign of Peter actually being present at the time, which Tony was sure was probably for the best right now as the medical team showed up. Thankfully FRIDAY sent Helene Cho and her team, and not someone that Tony didn’t trust with everything he had in them. </p><p>“Stark, you know we’re going to have to do a Rape Kit, right? It’d be best to do it as soon as possible before we have to clean the evidence off of him.” Helene spoke, before moving on to Peter, speaking softly to him. </p><p>It felt like a century before Peter was finally being loaded in the of the Med-Evac van and being brought to the tower, as SHIELD took pictures and collected evidence of the ‘altercation’ that happened in the apartment. </p><p>~~~~</p><p>“Where’s Peter?” May asked Tony, as Tony met her in the lobby of the tower.</p><p>“He’s in the Medbay. He doesn’t look good, May. He’s not even responsive right now, it’s really bad.” Tony explained, leading her up to where Peter is being kept.</p><p>“Who did this to my baby? I’ll kill them with my bare hands.” May’s face was red, as she shook her head. She had a bag of some comfort items that Peter’s used in the past, having being told what happened earlier on the phone. </p><p>“His name is Scott Wescott.” Tony answered. “He was an in-”</p><p>“Inmate at Queens Detention Facility. Prosecuted for sexually assaulting a minor, who was Peter by the way. Pardoned 3 months ago on good behavior. But he goes by Skip. I’m going to kill him.” </p><p>“Wait, he’s done this to Peter before?”</p><p>“I don’t know how I didn’t notice, again. I’m supposed to be his guardian, but then this doesn’t just happen to Peter once, but twice. It was all the same signs, I just thought this time it was because Skip got released, not because he was going through the same trauma again.”</p><p>“It’s not your fault, May, we all should have noticed that something was up with him. Peter started to shut us all out, he probably didn’t want any of us to know.”</p><p>May nodded as they finally made it to Peter’s room. Tony opened the door for her letting her in as he went in after May. Peter’s eyes were still blank as he was placed on the bed in a sitting position. Helene had said Peter has disassociated in a way to protect himself and that it may take him a little while to come out of it.</p><p>May had walked up to Peter, speaking softly to him, starting to pull some items out of the bag. First was a sweater that she put around Peter’s shoulders, then a thick knit blanket, and a stuffed bear. There was a few other things that she pulled out as well, but nothing seemed to work, Peter just continued to sit there.</p><p> “I’m going to go get us some coffee, I’ll be right back.” Tony spoke softly to May, before getting up from his seat and leaving Peter’s room. </p><p>Tony made it to elevator before feeling himself start to crack. He pinched his nose, holding in his breath and counting to 10 and breathing out, trying to compartmentalize these emotions away, until a time that Peter doesn’t need him.</p><p>“Tony, why didn’t you tell me Peter was in the MedBay? Was it from patrol or did something else happen? Why didn’t you call me?” Harley asked as soon as the elevator doors opened again, following Tony into the kitchen. </p><p>“Harls, I just left Peter’s room. I don’t know if he wants you to see him the way he is right now. He’s conscience but mentally in a really bad spot right now. Not to throw salt in the wound, but he probably broke up with you because he didn’t want you to see him when all this started.” </p><p>“When all this started? You can’t say things like that without letting me see him. Please Tony, I still care about him a lot, please let me see him, just for like 5 minutes.” Harley begged as his accent got thicker and voice started to crack, his face getting redder. </p><p>“I’ll ask May, she’s his guardian and gets to make the final decision on these things. Now help me make some coffee for May and I. Maybe some hot cocoa for yourself and Peter too, I wanna try and get him to ingest something.”</p><p>They make the drinks and make their way back downstairs to the MedBay. Harley stops outside of Peter’s room as Tony steps back in. Peter is still unresponsive, but May grabs the coffee from him and giving an attempt of a smile.</p><p>“There’s a love sick Tennessee boy out there hoping to get the chance to see Peter. He told only wants five minutes, I told him you got the final word on visitation.”</p><p>“Yeah, better for him to see Peter then wonder what Peter is like right now. Let him in.”</p><p>“Harley, you can come in.” Tony called out.</p><p>The teen boy stumbled into the room, holding a hot cocoa for himself and one for Peter. He stopping in his tracks, seeing the blank look on Peter’s face, how Peter wasn’t registering anything, that he was essentially a shell of who everyone grew to know Peter to be.</p><p>“Peter?” Harley barely whispered.</p><p>Harley seemed to crack, moving forward and putting the two drinks on the beside table and moving to Peter’s side. Harley rest a hand on Peter’s cheek, whispering his name again. This time Peter’s eyes snapped to attention, watching Harley with fear in his eyes, shaking his head as he pushed himself away. </p><p>“Hey, baby. Baby you’re okay, no one is going to hurt you anymore. You’re safe it’s okay.” May spoke quickly as Harley pulled his hand away from Peter’s face. </p><p>Peter turned to her, his eyes wide and watery as he tried his hardest not to sob, soothing himself back down into a calmer but anxiety filled state. Peter took the opportunity to look around the room, gaining the bearing of where he is. After a few moments Peter turned onto his side, making himself small and going to sleep.</p><p>~~~~</p><p>“Peter, I’ve been your therapist for the last two months, and while we’ve made a lot of progress you’ve still not spoken yet. Is there any reason why?”</p><p>Today was a group therapy session, the therapist felt it was important for those to happen twice a month until some major improvements were made in Peter’s mental health. The therapy had been grueling on Peter. For the first few sessions he would only shrug or choose not to respond, but now he seemed to nod of shake his head, pointing at things when he felt was necessary. </p><p>Group therapy only ever consisted of Peter, Tony and May, the ones deemed the most ‘affected’ by the situation. (Mainly because May was Peter’s guardian and Tony was like his Dad, so maybe it was more like family therapy sessions rather than group therapy, but they never named themselves a family.</p><p>Peter sighed at the question given to him, looking up at the ceiling and moving his head from side to side in consideration. He wanted to speak, wanted to talk again, but it seemed so hard. It seemed nearly impossible. Skip didn’t want him to tell people what happened. And Peter didn’t know how to tell anyone. Suddenly nothing good has happening anymore, and Peter was running out of words. He just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up again.</p><p>Peter took a sip of his water.</p><p>“No one- no one noticed what happened.” Peter’s voice was rough, felt like he was swallowing sand paper. It crackled and popped, dropping in pitch before rising again. It wasn’t his voice at all, but his voice all the same. “Promised it would never happen again. Then it did, and I was gonna tell May, I swear, I swear, but she wasn’t home, worked a double the second first time it happened. Then it happened the next day, and that was May’s night for an evening shift. And then it happened again and I was supposed to go out with Harley. Then weekend at the compound, and it was a break from everything. I couldn’t tell anyone. No one noticed. Felt like I was dying everyday, and everyone is happy and smiling and not noticing that something was wrong and that I want to die. It was never supposed to happen again, but it kept happening and no one noticed. No one noticed what was happening.”</p><p>May burst into tears, wiping her face as she kept apologizing on repeat. Tony held her hand trying to comfort her the best he can. He wiped away a few stray tears of his own, wishing he’d noticed sooner, that he wasn’t so full of himself that it cost Peter so much of his own life. But this wasn’t a pity session for May or Tony, it was about healing the fragmented pieces of Peter’s heart and moving forward from this all again.</p><p>“So you believe it’s hard to speak, because no one noticed you were being raped? That no one noticed that you were pulling into yourself? Because no one noticed you hardly ate and didn’t leave your apartment unless necessary.” The therapist said and Peter nodded. “I think you’ve not spoken until now because you didn’t believe you were worth saving, and you believed you deserved what you were getting. You didn’t believe you were worth saving, but now that you were saved, now that you just spoke, Peter I think you’re starting to believe you’re worth saving too.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Tumblr: @kittybellestark</p></blockquote></div></div>
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